Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan Volume II Part 9

'Yes: I want to go to the school; I want to see the school.'

Then they wonder if the fine brain has not wholly given way, while they make answer:

'It is midnight past, and there is no moon. And the night is cold.'

'No; I can see by the stars--I want to see the school again.'

They make kindliest protests in vain: the dying boy only repeats, with the plaintive persistence of a last--'I want to see the school again; I want to see it now.' So there is a murmured consultation in the neighbouring room; and tansu-drawers are unlocked, warm garments prepared. Then Fusaichi, the strong servant, enters with lantern lighted, and cries out in his kind rough voice:

'Master Tomi will go to the school upon my back: 'tis but a little way; he shall see the school again.

Carefully they wrap up the lad in wadded robes; then he puts his arms about Fusaichi's shoulders like a child; and the strong servant bears him lightly through the wintry street; and the father hurries beside Fusaichi, bearing the lantern. And it is not far to the school, over the little bridge.

The huge dark grey building looks almost black in the night; but Yokogi can see. He looks at the windows of his own cla.s.sroom; at the roofed side-door where each morning for four happy years he used to exchange his getas for soundless sandals of straw; at the lodge of the slumbering Kodzukai; [11] at the silhouette of the bell hanging black in its little turret against the stars. Then he murmurs:

'I can remember all now. I had forgotten--so sick I was. I remember everything again: Oh, Fusaichi, you are very good. I am so glad to have seen the school again.'

And they hasten back through the long void streets.

Sec. 22

November 26 1891.

Yokogi will be buried to-morrow evening beside his comrade Shida.

When a poor person is about to die, friends and neighbours come to the house and do all they can to help the family. Some bear the tidings to distant relatives; others prepare all necessary things; others, when the death has been announced, summon the Buddhist priests. [12]

It is said that the priests know always of a parishioner's death at night, before any messenger is sent to them; for the soul of the dead knocks heavily, once, upon the door of the family temple. Then the priests arise and robe themselves, and when the messenger comes make answer: 'We know: we are ready.'

Meanwhile the body is carried out before the family butsudan, and laid upon the floor. No pillow is placed under the head. A naked sword is laid across the limbs to keep evil spirits away. The doors of the butsudan are opened; and tapers are lighted before the tablets of the ancestors; and incense is burned. All friends send gifts of incense.

Wherefore a gift of incense, however rare and precious, given upon any other occasion, is held to be unlucky.

But the Shinto household shrine must be hidden from view with white paper; and the Shinto ofuda fastened upon the house door must be covered up during all the period of mourning. [13] And in all that time no member of the family may approach a Shinto temple, or pray to the Kami, or even pa.s.s beneath a torii.

A screen (biobu) is extended between the body and the princ.i.p.al entrance of the death chamber; and the kaimyo, inscribed upon a strip of white paper, is fastened upon the screen. If the dead be young the screen must be turned upside-down; but this is not done in the case of old people.

Friends pray beside the corpse. There a little box is placed, containing one thousand peas, to be used for counting during the recital of those one thousand pious invocations, which, it is believed, will improve the condition of the soul on its unfamiliar journey.

The priests come and recite the sutras; and then the body is prepared for burial. It is washed in warm water, and robed all in white. But the kimono of the dead is lapped over to the left side. Wherefore it is considered unlucky at any other time to fasten one's kimono thus, even by accident.

When the body has been put into that strange square coffin which looks something like a wooden palanquin, each relative puts also into the coffin some of his or her hair or nail parings, symbolizing their blood.

And six rin are also placed in the coffin, for the six Jizo who stand at the heads of the ways of the Six Shadowy Worlds.

The funeral procession forms at the family residence. A priest leads it, ringing a little bell; a boy bears the ihai of the newly dead. The van of the procession is wholly composed of men--relatives and friends. Some carry hata, white symbolic bannerets; some bear flowers; all carry paper lanterns--for in Izumo the adult dead are buried after dark: only children are buried by day. Next comes the kwan or coffin, borne palanquin-wise upon the shoulders of men of that pariah caste whose office it is to dig graves and a.s.sist at funerals. Lastly come the women mourners.

They are all white-hooded and white-robed from head to feet, like phantoms. [14] Nothing more ghostly than this sheeted train of an Izumo funeral procession, illuminated only by the glow of paper lanterns, can be imagined. It is a weirdness that, once seen, will often return in dreams.

At the temple the kwan is laid upon the pavement before the entrance; and another service is performed, with plaintive music and recitation of sutras. Then the procession forms again, winds once round the temple court, and takes its way to the cemetery. But the body is not buried until twenty-four hours later, lest the supposed dead should awake in the grave.

Corpses are seldom burned in Izumo. In this, as in other matters, the predominance of Shinto sentiment is manifest.

Sec. 23

For the last time I see his face again, as he lies upon his bed of death--white-robed from neck to feet--white-girdled for his shadowy journey--but smiling with closed eyes in almost the same queer gentle way he was wont to smile at cla.s.s on learning the explanation of some seeming riddle in our difficult English tongue. Only, methinks, the smile is sweeter now, as with sudden larger knowledge of more mysterious things. So smiles, through dusk of incense in the great temple of Tokoji, the golden face of Buddha.

Sec. 24

December 23, 1891. The great bell of Tokoji is booming for the memorial service--for the tsuito-kwai of Yokogi--slowly and regularly as a minute-gun. Peal on peal of its rich bronze thunder shakes over the lake, surges over the roofs of the town, and breaks in deep sobs of sound against the green circle of the hills.

It is a touching service, this tsuito-kwai, with quaint ceremonies which, although long since adopted into j.a.panese Buddhism, are of Chinese origin and are beautiful. It is also a costly ceremony; and the parents of Yokogi are very poor. But all the expenses have been paid by voluntary subscription of students and teachers. Priests from every great temple of the Zen sect in Izumo have a.s.sembled at Tokoji. All the teachers of the city and all the students have entered the hondo of the huge temple, and taken their places to the right and to the left of the high altar--kneeling on the matted floor, and leaving, on the long broad steps without, a thousand shoes and sandals.

Before the main entrance, and facing the high shrine, a new butsudan has been placed, within whose open doors the ihai of the dead boy glimmers in lacquer and gilding. And upon a small stand before the butsudan have been placed an incense-vessel with bundles of senko-rods and offerings of fruits, confections, rice, and flowers. Tall and beautiful flower- vases on each side of the butsudan are filled with blossoming sprays, exquisitely arranged. Before the honzon tapers burn in ma.s.sive candelabra whose stems of polished bra.s.s are writhing monsters--the Dragon Ascending and the Dragon Descending; and incense curls up from vessels shaped like the sacred deer, like the symbolic tortoise, like the meditative stork of Buddhist legend. And beyond these, in the twilight of the vast alcove, the Buddha smiles the smile of Perfect Rest.

Between the butsudan and the honzon a little table has been placed; and on either side of it the priests kneel in ranks, facing each other: rows of polished heads, and splendours of vermilion silks and vestments gold- embroidered.

The great bell ceases to peal; the Segaki prayer, which is the prayer uttered when offerings of food are made to the spirits of the dead, is recited; and a sudden sonorous measured tapping, accompanied by a plaintive chant, begins the musical service. The tapping is the tapping of the mokugyo--a huge wooden fish-head, lacquered and gilded, like the head of a dolphin grotesquely idealised--marking the time; and the chant is the chant of the Chapter of Kwannon in the Hokkekyo, with its magnificent invocation:

'O Thou whose eyes are clear, whose eyes are kind, whose eyes are full of pity and of sweetness--O Thou Lovely One, with thy beautiful face, with thy beautiful eye--O Thou Pure One, whose luminosity is without spot, whose knowledge is without shado--O Thou forever shining like that Sun whose glory no power may repel--Thou Sun-like in the course of Thy mercy, pourest Light upon the world!'

And while the voices of the leaders chant clear and high in vibrant unison, the mult.i.tude of the priestly choir recite in profoundest undertone the mighty verses; and the sound of their recitation is like the muttering of surf.

The mokugyo ceases its dull echoing, the impressive chant ends, and the leading officiants, one by one, high priests of famed temples, approach the ihai. Each bows low, ignites an incense-rod, and sets it upright in the little vase of bronze. Each at a time recites a holy verse of which the initial sound is the sound of a letter in the kaimyo of the dead boy; and these verses, uttered in the order of the characters upon the ihai, form the sacred Acrostic whose name is The Words of Perfume.

Then the priests retire to their places; and after a little silence begins the reading of the saibun--the reading of the addresses to the soul of the dead. The students speak first--one from each cla.s.s, chosen by election. The elected rises, approaches the little table before the high altar, bows to the honzon, draws from his bosom a paper and reads it in those melodious, chanting, and plaintive tones which belong to the reading of Chinese texts. So each one tells the affection of the living to the dead, in words of loving grief and loving hope. And last among the students a gentle girl rises--a pupil of the Normal School--to speak in tones soft as a bird's. As each saibun is finished, the reader lays the written paper upon the table before the honzon, and bows; and retires.

It is now the turn of the teachers; and an old man takes his place at the little table--old Katayama, the teacher of Chinese, famed as a poet, adored as an instructor. And because the students all love him as a father, there is a strange intensity of silence as he begins-- Ko-Shimane-Ken-Jinjo-Chugakko-yo-nen-sei:

'Here upon the twenty-third day of the twelfth month of the twenty- fourth year of Meiji, I, Katayama Shokei, teacher of the Jinjo Chugakko of Shimane Ken, attending in great sorrow the holy service of the dead [tsui-f.u.ku], do speak unto the soul of Yokogi Tomisaburo, my pupil.

'Having been, as thou knowest, for twice five years, at different periods, a teacher of the school, I have indeed met with not a few most excellent students. But very, very rarely in any school may the teacher find one such as thou--so patient and so earnest, so diligent and so careful in all things--so distinguished among thy comrades by thy blameless conduct, observing every precept, never breaking a rule.

'Of old in the land of Kihoku, famed for its horses, whenever a horse of rarest breed could not be obtained, men were wont to say: "There is no horse." Still there are many line lads among our students--many ryume, fine young steeds; but we have lost the best.

'To die at the age of seventeen--the best period of life for study--even when of the Ten Steps thou hadst already ascended six! Sad is the thought; but sadder still to know that thy last illness was caused only by thine own tireless zeal of study. Even yet more sad our conviction that with those rare gifts, and with that rare character of thine, thou wouldst surely, in that career to which thou wast destined, have achieved good and great things, honouring the names of thine ancestors, couldst thou have lived to manhood.

'I see thee lifting thy hand to ask some question; then bending above thy little desk to make note of all thy poor old teacher was able to tell thee. Again I see thee in the ranks--thy rifle upon thy shoulder-- so bravely erect during the military exercises. Even now thy face is before me, with its smile, as plainly as if thou wert present in the body--thy voice I think I hear distinctly as though thou hadst but this instant finished speaking; yet I know that, except in memory, these never will be seen and heard again. O Heaven, why didst thou take away that dawning life from the world, and leave such a one as I--old Shokei, feeble, decrepit, and of no more use?

'To thee my relation was indeed only that of teacher to pupil. Yet what is my distress! I have a son of twenty-four years; he is now far from me, in Yokohama. I know he is only a worthless youth; [15] yet never for so much as the s.p.a.ce of one hour does the thought of him leave his old father's heart. Then how must the father and mother, the brothers and the sisters of this gentle and gifted youth feel now that he is gone! Only to think of it forces the tears from my eyes: I cannot speak --so full my heart is.

'Aa! aa!--thou hast gone from us; thou hast gone from us! Yet though thou hast died, thy earnestness, thy goodness, will long be honoured and told of as examples to the students of our school.

'Here, therefore, do we, thy teachers and thy schoolmates, hold this service in behalf of thy spirit,--with prayer and offerings. Deign thou, 0 gentle Soul, to honour our love by the acceptance of our humble gifts.'

Then a sound of sobbing is suddenly whelmed by the resonant booming of the great fish's-head, as the high-pitched voices of the leaders of the chant begin the grand Nehan-gyo, the Sutra of Nirvana, the song of pa.s.sage triumphant over the Sea of Death and Birth; and deep below those high tones and the hollow echoing of the mokugyo, the surging ba.s.s of a century of voices reciting the sonorous words, sounds like the breaking of a sea:

'Sho-gyo mu-jo, je-sho meppo.--Transient are all. They, being born, must die. And being born, are dead. And being dead, are glad to be at rest.'